The final spell has been cast and the Harry Potter movie franchise is coming to a close. Of course, you knew that.

The boy wizard’s face has been everywhere lately: trailers, movie posters, magazines, TV shows. If there’s one thing you can count on with a big-budget summer movie, it’s hype. Quality, on the other hand, is a more uncertain variable, one too often sacrificed to the gods of Lowest-Common-Denominator Programming.

Thankfully, returning director David Yates and the other professionals on the Potter creative team have not wavered. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” is a terrific film that stands nicely on its own and cements the franchise’s place as one of the greatest in film history.

Everyone has been burned by sequel letdown, the annoyance that comes upon realizing that a second or third effort just doesn’t have IT. Or, to milk an apt metaphor, that the magic is gone. The great thing about the Harry Potter movies is that the magic was always there, and it blossomed, becoming more astounding as Harry and his friends matured.

That’s not saying “Deathly Hallows, Part 2” is the best film of the eight-movie series. On the contrary, both “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and “Deathly Hallows, Part 1” take a greater emotional toll on the viewer. But “Part 2” couldn’t leave us with a hair-raising cliffhanger like Albus Dumbledore’s death. Its job is to wrap all the pieces of the Potter universe into a package, to thrill us while neatly tying all the dangling story threads. In that respect, it is superb.

Official trailer from Warner Brothers

As with “Deathly Hallows, Part 1,” “Part 2” will play best to those who know the Potter universe. Yates directs the film with the assumption that viewers have seen the earlier pictures and that they know about the world they’re entering. By so doing, he avoids long explanatory pauses that would only slow the story. That said, he acknowledges that it’s been six months since the last film was in theaters, including brief memory aids that will help viewers who haven’t dipped into Potterland since.

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The entire franchise has been leading toward a wizardly showdown between Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), and “Part 2” does not disappoint. Voldemort, who was in a weakened state through most of the movies, is now astonishingly powerful, in part because he has come into possession of the Elder Wand, which is rumored to make its owner invincible.

One of Voldemort’s disciples, Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), is ruling Harry’s old school, Hogwarts, and the wizarding world is in general disarray. In an effort to restore order, Harry and his friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), are searching for magical Horcruxes that the dark wizard created in an attempt to gain immortality. In order for Voldemort to be killed, the Horcruxes must be destroyed, and Harry spends a good deal of the film on this mission.

“Deathly Hallows, Part 2” also features a climactic, large-scale battle of the sort that will make the “Lord of the Rings” fans proud. That makes it darker and more violent than previous entries (noteworthy if you’re taking small children), but it also allows for beautifully executed special effects and action sequences.

It’s hard to imagine where Daniel Radcliffe’s career will go from here because he will always be associated with Potter. That, however, is a compliment to his work on the films. Unlike many movie heroes, Harry Potter has depth, and Radcliffe has been brilliant each step of the way.

In “Part 2,” he gets typically strong supporting outings from Grint and Watson, but the movie really belongs to Harry and Voldemort, and Fiennes is excellent in the latter role. Since Voldemort was largely unseen in the early movies, it’s nice to watch him chew some scenery. The truth, however, is that it’s difficult to single out actors in the Potter movies because they’re all so good. When you have folks like Jim Broadbent, Helena Bonham Carter and Maggie Smith in character roles, it’s hard to go wrong.

The final Potter movie’s main failing — if you’re looking for one — is that Warner Brothers is delivering it with a 3D option. Admittedly, the special-issue 3D glasses we used at a press screening were cool (they look like the boy wizard’s signature spectacles), and fans are supposed to receive these until supplies run out. Thing is, the glasses are the best thing about the concept.

Unlike “Avatar,” which used 3D effects as a storytelling aid, “Deathly Hallows, Part 2” uses 3D only to add depth to scenes. This is a nice touch in some cases, but the trade off is that everything looks darker, and there are a lot of shadowy sequences in the movie. So, viewers who choose the 3D option are paying extra to see depth but getting a fair share of murk in return. The movie has plenty of opportunities where 3D could have been used to great effect, but it’s not. And that makes the whole concept feel like a cash grab.

That’s too bad because, as successful as the franchise has been, that’s not what it’s really about. The Potter movies have been consistently thrilling and well executed despite their blockbuster status, proving that it is possible to balance financial success and quality filmmaking — even for an extended period.

Sadly, that period is complete, but at least it’s ending on a high note.